


self-loving, self-loathing

by kinklock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (no actual sex between Sherlock and Janine in reality), Angst, F/M, Ficlet, Jealous John, M/M, Mary is not cast in a positive light, Pining John, S3, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinklock/pseuds/kinklock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John was being personally victimized by a newspaper article.</p>
            </blockquote>





	self-loving, self-loathing

**Author's Note:**

> if like me you enjoy John driving himself insane with sick fantasies about Sherlock and other people, this is for you (unbeta'd)

John was being personally victimized by a newspaper article. Well, technically a tabloid article. A tabloid article that had been strategically left on top of his traveling bag, the only thing he’d returned to his suburban home to retrieve. 

Mary had never shown an interest in tabloids before, but the front page featuring her smug maid of honour was apparently the exception to the rule. John felt certain this was meant to be found, and to sting. 

John had intended to ignore any form of passive aggressive communication from Mary he might encounter, but the ‘Shag-a-lot Holmes’ had proven too attention grabbing to ignore. He wouldn’t have been able to miss ‘Holmes’ written in a 6-point font nota bene, let alone when it was prominently featured in a loud front-page headline. 

A tell-all from Janine. Who had, briefly, lived at Baker Street. With Sherlock. While John had been away. 

Well, that had been a faked relationship though, hadn’t it? Probably getting a bit of her own back, good on you Janine. Probably all drivel. 

Except they’d been close enough for her to walk in on him in the bath. And she’d sat on his lap. And they. Well. They had kissed. 

Janine, wearing the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ hat, beamed up at John. 

He slipped the tabloid into his bag. 

+

John and his ready-to-pack folded shirts returned to 221B (where else?), but with Sherlock still in hospital John was on his own. He hadn’t been alone in 221B since. Well.

Sherlock back in the hospital, Christ. Sherlock hurt badly, and because of something John had brought into their lives. 

Sherlock collapsing in this very living room. You may have to restart my heart.

John had intended a quiet evening, perhaps read the Lancet or watch the news, but the tabloid paper he’d planned to ignore (and instead read fourteen times) had inserted itself on top of his medical journal. 

John had intended a lot of things, but instead found himself unscrewing the cap on a dusty bottle of scotch and drinking it straight. 

The few liquor bottles kept in the flat had always previously been kept underneath the sink. John had needed to search for this particular bottle, only to find it relocated in one of the cupboards.

Something else that had been moved in his absence. Like his chair. 

Must have been her then. Like with the coffee. 

John sat back down on the couch with drink in hand, his focus drifting to his reinstated armchair. Where had it gone while he’d been away? Clearly hadn’t got very far. 

Sherlock wouldn’t have moved it up and down stairs, would he? Seems like a lot of effort, and here it was back in the living room, easily enough. Must have been in Sherlock’s bedroom then.

Brilliant deduction that. Wow us some more. 

John took another pull from his glass. 

The memory of Janine sitting in Sherlock’s lap in the dark leather armchair opposite, Sherlock’s chair, was still fresh in his mind. Sherlock smiling up at her, adoringly. Reaching up to lightly, affectionately, touch her nose. 

But that had all been fake. Hadn’t it. 

Sherlock was a great actor, John had seen him put on crocodile tears time and time again to get what he wanted. And Sherlock always got what he wanted, always his way. If grand emotion like crying was easily in his range, affectionate boyfriend probably hadn’t been much of a stretch. 

What else could he have faked? Or, did faking end up being necessary? Janine and Sherlock seemed to get along almost immediately at the wedding. John had seen them, chatting, Janine standing close to Sherlock. John had seen them, and had walked over, and touched the small of Sherlock’s back. 

Janine’s eyes going wide when she saw his handcuffs. “Down girl.” Sherlock couldn’t have known Janine was associated with Magnussen then. Had that been, what, actual flirting?

Maybe it wasn’t in general Sherlock’s “area”, but there had been The Woman. And Janine was attractive. 

Maybe once he got started he’d. Gone. With the flow. 

Maybe there was an actual reason (beyond seeing the kitchen) that John’s armchair had been moved from the living room. With his chair in Sherlock’s bedroom, maybe they’d done quite a bit of. Well. Lap sitting. 

7 times a night, even. 

Janine’s pleased face in print was lying next to him on the couch. Had she been pleased? Would Sherlock have pleased her?

Unbidden, John imagined Sherlock settling into his chair, now moved to Sherlock’s bedroom, maybe after solving a case, his blood still racing from the thrill of the game. Janine, flirtatious Janine, wearing only one of Sherlock’s dress shirts, sliding onto Sherlock’s open thighs, glibly asking, “Did you solve me a case, Sherlock Holmes?”

Sherlock smiling that sweet, secret smile and lifting his face and pressing his lips to hers, cupping her face, her neck in his hands. Janine touching his cheeks, running her fingers up past his hairline and into his curls. 

Sherlock making dark, hot sounds deep in his throat, and Janine would tilt his head up to kiss him harder. Janine, forward Janine, slipping her hands down his straining dress shirt, down until they palmed him, hard in his trousers. (Would he be hard for her? Yes, of course he would,)

John hadn’t meant to, but once he got started it was hard to not go with the flow. The hand that had been around his drink was now – 

John pressed down. No. Not. Not to that. But, if he couldn’t ever have what he wanted, he could have this, couldn’t he? 

Him and Mary weren’t living together any more. He didn’t have to wake from dreams of Sherlock to a hard on he would have to hide. Even if Mary reached for him thinking it was for her, his guilt never allowed him to continue. When he’d been thinking of him. God, and that had been before all this. He’d been doomed from the start, hadn’t he? 

The Sherlock and Janine of his imagination were still sitting in John’s chair, hands still roaming, Sherlock’s eyes dark, like in John’s dream, pupils blown wide. 

Staring right at John. Sherlock parted his lips and moaned. 

Sherlock was trailing his hand up Janine’s leg, his long fingers sliding further, skirting the edge of the shirt, rising up. Those fingers, those beautiful slender fingers, disappearing, Janine gasping when John imagines they slide home. 

Sherlock’s eyes still bore into John’s, his hand moving in and out, over and over, and Janine’s hand is pressing harder, stroking rapidly over top of Sherlock’s trousers, and he’s bucking into her hand, desperate, flushed and needy, when he starts to cry out “J - “

+

John comes hard and wet. He sits still, breathing heavily, feeling his mess seeping through the fabric. 

The scene fades while Janine’s smile lingers. 

John cleans himself off with what’s easily at hand, and bins it. 

Janine still looked smug all the same.


End file.
